Prairie

by Kate Belew

This is my call. Follow it.
The sky will pull like the lake wind.
Drown the boat of your eyes.
The branches of your thumbs hold
foxtails in your fists.
Bees are humming in my earth
like small earthquakes.
The yarrow bleeds here. The feet
before you furl the path open. Spread
legs of summer. You can run
here without looking down.
Hair burning like grasslands on fire.
The grasses licking your bones like flames
as you pass through. The echoes
of branches breaking behind you.
Just up and go.

Kate Belew is a sophomore at Kalamazoo College. She plans to major in English with an Emphasis on Writing, and has studied under Diane Seuss and Traci Brimhall. “Prairie” was written thanks to support from Pierce Cedar Creek Institute’s Nature in Words Fellowship.

Evil is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be endured.
Flannery O'Connor